Stein, JeremyScharfstein, DavidCampbell, JohnHart, OliverSunderam, AdiKirti, Divya2017-07-252016-052016-04-252016Kirti, Divya. 2016. Essays in Financial Economics. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33493438The chapters in this dissertation study the incidence of risk, risk taking, and the role of markets used to trade risk, with a focus on interest-rate risk. In Chapter 1, I ask why bank-dependent firms bear interest-rate risk. I argue that the short-term nature of banks’ own financing drives the extent to which bank-dependent firms bear interest-rate risk. In Chapter 2, I examine the implications of life insurers’ risk taking for theories of why financial institutions take risk. In Chapter 3, I argue that reference rates mitigate contractual incompleteness and facilitate risk sharing.application/pdfenEconomics, FinanceThesis or Dissertation2017-07-25